"Popular efforts to improve education are focusing on the wrong problem. Millions of dollars and hours of innovation are being spent on improving how we deliver content in an era when content matters less and how we interact with it matters more....

"However, the weak link in our current learning paradigm isn’t content delivery. Traditional textbooks deliver content efficiently and effectively, and access to content is cheaper and easier than at any other time in history thanks to the internet. It’s only with the guidance of a skilled teacher and interaction with other learners that content becomes relevant and engaging. That’s what makes good teaching important. Future education is better served by investing in and developing tools that support discussion and interaction, not improving content delivery."

In education there as many questions and answers as there are children. Kahn Academy is not the wrong answer. Neither is it the right answer. It is ONE answer to the question: How can we increase access to content and information for students and adults who want to learn?

News and notes US National Archives enshrines Wikipedia in Open Government Plan, plans to upload all holdings to Commons The US National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) have committed to engaging with Wikimedia projects in their newest Open Government Plan. The biannual effort is a roadmap for how the agency will accomplish its goals in the digital age.

“If you want to make a different kind of game, you need a different demographic building the game.”

Pamela D Lloyd's insight:

There's no reason games can't have stories that appeal to a wide audience. When game design teams include a diverse set of people, including men and women, the games they create are simply more likely to be diverse.

You're a goldsmith, and a couple of guys approach you asking you to make a special gift for a friend. It's a Greek-themed tiara, and they want a specific inscription. Well, what's the worst that could happen?

In his powerful speech at the AFL-CIO convention in September last year, the Nobel Prize-winning economist said that our economy is sick and we are losing the American dream.

Pamela D Lloyd's insight:

"Let us be clear: our economy is not working the way a well working economy should. We have vast unmet needs, but idle workers and machines. We have bridges that need repair, roads and schools that need to be built. We have students that need a 21st century education, but we are laying off teachers. We have empty homes and homeless people. We have rich banks that are not lending to our small businesses, but are instead using their wealth and ingenuity to manipulate markets and exploit working people with predatory lending."

"We are losing the ability to call ourselves the land of opportunity.... We are losing the American dream."

This tool will be of interest to teachers, scholars, genealogists, historians, and just about anyone with a need to share information about multiple locations. Best of all, the Basic plan is free and provides access to the functionality most individual users are likely to need.

Better for the planet because they use less energy, healthier for us because plant-based diets help reduce many metabolic diseases, and definitely better for chickens. I just hope Hampton Creek and the scientists working with them are able to achieve their goal, "to totally replace eggs without sacrificing taste."

The age old to-do list -- a common tool to help get $#&T done. In my years of to-do listing, I've discovered that it is often this common productivity trick that actually prevents me from being optimally productive.

Pamela D Lloyd's insight:

This is first for me: scooping the Scoop.it! blog. :)

I don't often share time-management techniques, but this one looks useful. I'll be trying this, the next time I create a to-do list. Although, I will say that the rule of thumb that recommends allotting 1 hour per task looks like one that should be applied judiciously, since some of my tasks will be household repairs that will definitely require more than an hour to complete.

The Bosco Verticale is a system that optimizes, recuperates, and produces energy. Covered in plant life, the building aids in balancing the microclimate and in filtering the dust particles contained in the urban environment. Milan is one of the most polluted cities in Europe. The diversity of the plants and their characteristics produce humidity, absorb CO2 and dust particles, producing oxygen and protect the building from radiation and acoustic pollution. This not only improves the quality of living spaces, but gives way to dramatic energy savings year round.

Each apartment in the building will have a balcony planted with trees that are able to respond to the city’s weather — shade will be provided within the summer, while also filtering city pollution; and in the winter the bare trees will allow sunlight to permeate through the spaces. Plant irrigation will be supported through the filtering and reuse of the greywater produced by the building. Additionally, Aeolian and photovoltaic energy systems will further promote the tower’s self-sufficiency.

The design of the Bosco Verticale is a response to both urban sprawl and the disappearance of nature from our lives and on the landscape. The architect notes that if the units were to be constructed unstacked as stand-alone units across a single surface, the project would require 50,000 square meters of land, and 10,000 square meters of woodland. Bosco Verticale is the first offer in his proposed BioMilano, which envisions a green belt created around the city to incorporate 60 abandoned farms on the outskirts of the city to be revitalized for community use.

I greatly appreciate the efforts of so many architects to examine ways that we can make our cities more ecologically sound. Plus, so often, the proposed solutions offer greater natural beauty to previously sterile cityscapes.

I can't help wondering, though, how the plants on the many scattered balconies on these apartment buildings will be maintained and cared for. I'm sure that however well-meaning the various occupants of the apartments might be, that few of them will be entirely up to the task.

The Psychology of Choice: When only one choice is offered, most of us don't think past that option, even when we know there are other possibilities. When all the possibilities are offered, we select from among them. It's common sense, and marketing companies have used this for a long time to manipulate us, but we're only just beginning to recognize the ways in which we can use this information to improve our health and our lives.

In the 1920s, Alice Van Leer Carrick, the pioneering authority on American silhouettes, came upon an album kept by William Bache (1771–1845) as a record of his work and expressed her delight in “turning the pages of this century-old treasure-trove...

Pamela D Lloyd's insight:

An entertaining story about silhouettes and the importance one US Revolutionary War hero attached to his queue.

So much for Hagar the Horrible. Viking women may have have outnumbered men moving to England in the medieval era, suggests a look at ancient burials.

Pamela D Lloyd's insight:

New osteological evidence contradicts earlier assumptions based on grave goods, such as the presence of swords and other weapons, regarding the sex of the individuals buried. In the 14 Viking burials in Eastern England examined by the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Western Australia, as reported in the Early Medieval Europe journal, 6 were women, 7 were men, and the sex of 1 has not yet been determined.

A video game that is classified as a storytelling experience is taking the place of traditional text in some classrooms to teach students critical thinking skills.

Pamela D Lloyd's insight:

The creative use of a game, as described in this article, can engage students with a story in a nonlinear way that fosters the development of a number of critical thinking skills. I am especially impressed by instructor Paul Darvasi's care in developing his lesson plans around this game to avoid disrupting his students' pleasure in interacting with the game.

Analysis over 20 years reveals heavy Anglo-Saxon influence, with French and Danish DNA coming from earlier migrations than the Normans or Vikings

Pamela D Lloyd's insight:

Fascinating and detailed look into British genetics, 20 years in the making: "Prof Peter Donnelly, director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, who co-led the research, said: 'It has long been known that human populations differ genetically, but never before have we been able to observe such exquisite and fascinating detail.'" As someone with a lot of Welsh ancestry, I was especially interested to learn that the Welsh "DNA most closely resembles that of the earliest hunter-gatherers to have arrived when Britain became habitable again after the Ice Age."

Nafeez Ahmed: Natural and social scientists develop new model of how 'perfect storm' of crises could unravel global system

Pamela D Lloyd's insight:

From the article: "Modelling a range of different scenarios, Motesharri and his colleagues conclude that under conditions 'closely reflecting the reality of the world today... we find that collapse is difficult to avoid.'"

Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier is melting irreversibly and could add as much as a centimetre to ocean levels in 20 years.

Pamela D Lloyd's insight:

Despite the claims of climate change deniers, Antarctica's glaciers are melting. The resulting runoff is fresh water, which has contributed to an expanding ice sheet, but water that was previously bound up on land is now being added to the total amount of water in our oceans, causing sea levels to rise.

NIH Research Matters - Pay incentives for clinician performance can improve cardiovascular care in small primary care clinics that use electronic health records, a new study reports.

Pamela D Lloyd's insight:

It only makes sense! We all focus on those goals for which we receive recognition, and this is especially true of organizations. When incentives to medical practitioners focus on the number of patients seen, patients become cogs on an assembly belt, hurried through the system. But, when the focus is on providing improved health outcomes, then the quality of the health care improves.

For thousands of years, Judean date palm trees were one of the most recognizable and welcome sights for people living in the Middle East -- widely cultivated throughout the region for their sweet fruit, and for the cool shade they offered from the blazing desert sun.

From its founding some 3,000 years ago, to the dawn of the Common Era, the trees became a staple crop in the Kingdom of Judea, even garnering several shout-outs in the Old Testament. Judean palm trees would come to serve as one of the kingdom's chief symbols of good fortune; King David named his daughter, Tamar, after the plant's name in Hebrew.

By the time the Roman Empire sought to usurp control of the kingdom in 70 AD, broad forests of these trees flourished as a staple crop to the Judean economy -- a fact that made them a prime resource for the invading army to destroy. Sadly, around the year 500 AD, the once plentiful palm had been completely wiped out, driven to extinction for the sake of conquest.

In the centuries that followed, first-hand knowledge of the tree slipped from memory to legend. Up until recently, that is.

During excavations at the site of Herod the Great's palace in Israel in the early 1960's, archeologists unearthed a small stockpile of seeds stowed in a clay jar dating back 2,000 years. For the next four decades, the ancient seeds were kept in a drawer at Tel Aviv's Bar-Ilan University. But then, in 2005, botanical researcher Elaine Solowey decided to plant one and see what, if anything, would sprout.

"I assumed the food in the seed would be no good after all that time. How could it be?" said Solowey. She was soon proven wrong.

Amazingly, the multi-millennial seed did indeed sprout -- producing a sapling no one had seen in centuries, becoming the oldest known tree seed to germinate.

Today, the living archeological treasure continues to grow and thrive; In 2011, it even produced its first flower -- a heartening sign that the ancient survivor was eager to reproduce. It has been proposed that the tree be cross-bred with closely related palm types, but it would likely take years for it to begin producing any of its famed fruits. Meanwhile, Solowey is working to revive other age-old trees from their long dormancy.

It was the late 90s and I was at an interesting phase of my career. For the first time in my life I possessed relevant qualifications, experience and could also show a successful track record in my chosen career path.

Pamela D Lloyd's insight:

This man's experience provides a fairly dramatic example of one way in which gender discrimination continues to be a problem in technologically advanced nations around the world.

Adults who eat a more plant-based diet may be boosting their chance of living longer, according to a large analysis.

Pamela D Lloyd's insight:

There are many reasons for being a vegetarian, or even for continuting to eat meat, but reducing how much and how often you include meat in your diet, but the health benefits apply to everyone who reduces their meat intake, regardless of their reasons for doing so.

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